~ …give that you may live, for to withhold is to perish. (Adapted from Kahlil Gibran)

Exploring OpenLibrary.org

The Internet Archive, in conjunction with 150 libraries, has rolled out a new 80,000 e-book lending collection today on OpenLibrary.org. This means that library patrons with an OpenLibrary account can check out any of these e-books.The hope is that this effort will help libraries make the move to digital book lending. “As readers go digital, so are our libraries,” says Brewster Kahle, founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. (via ReadWriteWeb)

So, the question for me is, what do you do next? Well, after creating an account, I decided to do a search on Scott Sigler‘s name. He’s a Sci-Fi writer who not only posts some his work online for free, but also makes serial podcasts you can sign up to listen to. I was introduced to his work after encountering that work, and always look for his stuff online.

Here are the results of my search:

Notice those two books on the list? Well worth the investment! When I first read INFECTED, I couldn’t put the book down until I was done. The sequel, Contagious, comes up in the search, too.

I decided to find at a library, and then entered my zip code to pull up nearby libraries. No titles came up at a nearby library, so I clicked on WorldCat. I did find it that way but it required an account in the library.

In short, I probably could have gone to an online ebook seller and just purchased it there. I’m not sure that OpenLibrary is all that great for finding for cost books, and for finding free stuff, well, there’s so many other places.